JOURNAL OF YANGTZE RIVER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTI ›› 2018, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (9): 58-62.DOI: 10.11988/ckyyb.20170323

• ENGINERING SAFETY AND DISASTER PREVENTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Causes of Abnormal Damage of Ms6.2 Earthquake in Norcia, Italy

LIU Yong1,2, WANG Yun-sheng1, Janusz Wasowski3   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University ofTechnology, Chengdu 610059, China;
    2.Prospecting Technology Institute of Chinese Geological Academy,Chengdu 611743, China;
    3.National Research Council of Italy,Bari 999016,Italy
  • Received:2017-03-24 Online:2018-09-01 Published:2018-09-18

Abstract: At local time 3:36 on August 24, 2016, an Ms6.2 earthquake hit the town of Norcia in Lazio Rieti Province of central Italy. Despite that the earthquake magnitude was not big, some ancient towns were severely damaged. In this paper we revealed the causes of the abnormal damage by analyzing the architectural structure, geological structure, and topographic features in the study area according to monitoring achievements of seismic response of slopes in recent years in association with numerical simulation. Results uncover that terrain amplification effect could give rise to severe seismic disaster in spite of small magnitude and long distance to the epicenter. The poor seismic performance of aged buildings, the shallow seismic focus, the amplification effect of seismic wave induced by isolated topography are key factors resulting in the large number of casualties.

Key words: Ms6.2 earthquake in Norcia, Italy, abnormal damage, building structure, geological condition, terrain amplification

CLC Number: